New Life Lodge drug rehabilitation center in Burns has been the subject of complaints about patient care and overcrowded conditions / GEORGE WALKER IV / THE TENNESSEAN

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The Tennessean

The Department of Children’s Services has stopped placing children in state care at Tennessee’s largest drug rehabilitation facility, which last year had two adult patients die within a six-week period.

Citing concerns for the well-being of children in its care, DCS notified New Life Lodge of the decision on July 28. The 43 DCS children at the facility will remain there until their rehabilitation stays are complete, a state spokesman said.

The cutoff came three days after The Tennessean published the results of a three-month investigation into New Life Lodge that uncovered the deaths, complaints about patient care and overcrowded conditions, and reduced oversight by the state.

New Life Lodge received $1.8 million from DCS last year and was on track to surpass $3 million this year, according to state records. The facility recently completed a $10 million expansion that boosted its overall number of beds to 228.

Recent DCS inspections of New Life Lodge found that the facility has failed to track risks to patients, has not properly submitted reports after serious incidents and has an inadequate and underdeveloped quality assurance program.

The facility, in the rural town of Burns in Dickson County, is the frequent subject of emergency ambulance and police calls. Dickson County Sheriff Jeff Bledsoe told The Tennessean earlier this year that he was concerned with the high number of runaways from the facility.

The state outsources key inspections of the facility to a national accrediting agency, which extended New Life Lodge a three-year accreditation earlier this year.

New Life Lodge is owned by a California-based company called CRC Health. The facility is by far the largest residential rehabilitation and detoxification operation in the state.

CRC executive Randal Lea said he believed the placement freeze would be temporary after the facility made moves to address issues raised by DCS. Lea said recent inspections of the facility found no life-safety concerns.

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“The admissions freeze by DCS is temporary,” Lea said. “New Life Lodge has already provided evidence of quality improvement measures that should reopen the door to new admissions from DCS.”

'No effective means to assess risks'

In the July 28 letter, Larry Post, a DCS official who oversees the inspection process, outlined the department’s issues with the operations at New Life Lodge.

“Management determined that the concerns regarding the safety and well-being of custodial youth placed with your agency’s facility require suspending admissions to your agency at this time,” Post’s letter stated.

A recent DCS inspection of New Life Lodge found that the facility “has no effective means to assess risks,” according to the July letter. The department also cited concerns with the facility’s clinical component, which is undergoing significant development.

Before its arrangement with DCS is restored, New Life Lodge must develop a corrective action plan to demonstrate its operations have improved, according to the letter.

Mom died last year

On Aug. 31 of last year, a 29-year-old patient, Lindsey Poteet, was put in a van to be driven to Nashville’s Saint Thomas Hospital. On the way, Poteet, who had been showing pneumonia-like symptoms, became unresponsive and apparently stopped breathing. The driver of the vehicle pulled off the highway and called 911, but Poteet died the next day.

Poteet’s family questioned why she was placed in a van to be driven to Nashville, when Horizon Medical Center was just eight miles away. Poteet’s mother, Kathy Mauk, said her questions about the incident were never answered by New Life Lodge management.

On the heels of Poteet’s death, Amerigroup, which insures TennCare customers, elected to sever its contract with New Life Lodge, according to a TennCare spokeswoman.

On July 15, 2010, a 20-year-old patient at the facility became unresponsive and stopped breathing, according to a 911 call. He died the next day.

Without citing any specific incidents, the July 28 DCS letter cited concerns that New Life Lodge is not “properly submitting or tracking/trending your serious incident reports.”

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New Life Lodge does about $10 million annually in government business.

Department of Mental Health spokesman Grant Lawrence said two unannounced inspections of New Life Lodge this year found no significant non-compliance issues. Lawrence said the department has been in open communication with DCS about New Life Lodge.

According to the Dickson County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to 178 calls for service in 2010, many of them for runaway youths. Cumberland Heights, which is the second-largest rehab center in the state, by comparison had 28 calls for service, according to the Metro police department.

Gordon Bonnyman of the Tennessee Justice Center expressed concern about leaving 43 young DCS clients at the facility but said the state may have no alternatives.

“I think this points to the lack of resources available for these services,” Bonnyman said. “It is a slot-driven system.

“Where else can they send them? They just don’t have the resources. We don’t have an adequate system.”